Lori Lea Pourier (Oglala Lakota), a citizen of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, served as the President of the First Peoples Fund (FPF) between 1998-2024. Currently, Lori is the Founder and Senior Fellow of First Peoples Fund. 

Before joining First Peoples Fund, Lori’s early work began at the First Nations Development Institute and as the Executive Director of the International Indigenous Women’s Network (IWN).   

In 2024 Lori was elected to the Academy of Arts & Science. In 2023 she received the International Guardians of Culture and Lifeways Lifetime Achievement Award for the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums. In 2022, she received the Association of Performing Arts Professionals, Sidney Yates Advocacy Award, and the Kennedy Center Next 50 trailblazer leader. Other recognitions include the 2017 Ford Foundation Art of Change Fellow, a recipient of the 2013 Women’s World Summit Foundation Prize for Creativity in Rural Life, and a 2013 Louis T. Delgado Distinguished Grantmaker Awardee.   

Lori serves on the Board of Directors of the Jerome Foundation and the Library of Congress American Folklife Center Board of Trustees. She served two terms on the Grantmakers in the Arts (GIA) board of directors and Native Americans in Philanthropy.  Lori also contributed to the National Endowment for the Arts’ publication, How to Do Creative Placemaking and Future/Present, Arts in A Changing America. 

Lori is a founding partner with Arts in a Changing America, the Cultural New Deal and the Intercultural Leadership Institute (ILI), a collaboration between First Peoples Fund, Alternate ROOTS, the PA’I Foundation, and the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture.